We Deliver

Created for online career network Monster, Stork manages to be beautiful, funny and ultimately almost tragic, all within a mere 60 seconds. The spot, created by BBDO New York and directed by Daniel Kleinman for Rattling Stick, features an amazing CG stork that is the latest breathtakingly lifelike creature to be hatched by our commercials 3D team.

The spot was supervised by Kleinman's long-time associate at Framestore CFC, William Bartlett, who also lead composited the work. The 3D team was headed by Dan Seddon. The biggest single challenge in 3D was the feathers, which are always tricky, and never more so than on a bird like a stork whose plumage appears more loosely packed than many other birds', with many of its large feathers individually discernable. In meeting the challenge Seddon and his team developed a new grooming system for the feathers, one that gave them greater flexibility in changing their size and shape than ever before.

For the spot to be able to sell its essentially mythological premise required a realism that you can bank upon. Framestore CFC ensured that – like the baby - this was delivered safe and sound
 

"I was particularly happy
with the vomit..."

In two recent spots for online stock trading service E*Trade, Framestore NY managed to seamlessly fuse the remarkable talents of a small baby, a five-year-old boy, and a decidedly laid-back sounding director. The spots premiered in the US during this year's Super Bowl XLII, and became an instant word-of-mouth smash, garnering over 2 million youtube hits between them. Deceptively titled Trading and Banking, the two spots consist of a webcam-like shot of a remarkably mature little baby describing the ease-of-use of E*Trade's services. They are easily among the funniest spots to have appeared during 2008…

"First, the baby was filmed on his own," explains Senior Flame Artist Raul Ortego, "They then had a five year old boy read the script at a variety of cadences and rhythms, and from every conceivable angle. It was then up to us to seamlessly track the five year old's mouth on to the baby's face. The very funny voiceover was done by the director of the spot, Randy Krallman. I was particularly happy with the vomit, which was a combination of our CG work and actual yogurt spit out by the five year old. We did a greenscreen shoot of a milky substance being pushed through a hole. The way it comes out and sticks to his lips is very realistic."

So don’t say you haven’t been warned…
 

Different Days

Beyond a three letter word at the end of their titles, it would be difficult to think of two projects with less in common than Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Doomsday. The first is a gentle comedy and romance, set in pre-WWII London. The second is a polished sci-fi actioner, set in a post-apocalyptic Scottish hellscape. But both projects came to Framestore CFC for their DI, each with individual and contrasting needs. And both shared the same Colourist, Asa Shoul, who spoke recently about working on the chalk and cheese pair.

"Doomsday's cinematographer, Sam McCurdy, definitely wanted a sexy looking film," Shoul says, "Lots of high contrast, lots of cyan. It's set thirty years in the future, and a lot of the action took place at night. It had been shot in Glasgow and around Cape Town, South Africa, for the varied locations. The film has over 6000 shots in its 105 minutes, which I think breaks our previous record, set by Hot Fuzz last year. So we had to help the audience's eye pick out the action as clearly as possible from cut to cut, as well as maintaining a consistency throughout. Sam was in virtually every day, which was both very useful and a pleasure, as he’s an old colleague."

"John de Borman (Miss Pettigrew's cinematographer), on the other hand, had other projects already underway when the DI was scheduled. So we had to spend an intensive day together outlining his intentions, followed by my working alone to the brief we developed, followed by an intensive day and a half at the end. Fortunately it also worked out very well. To help evoke a nostalgic, period look to the film they'd used some old lenses, which gave something of a 'stocking filtered' look. This worked well, in general, and looked lovely, though it caused a few technical issues with focus. The palette, too, was utterly different to Doomsday's. About 80% of the film takes place within one large apartment, over a single day. So part of the DI's function was to help make the place look more interesting, varying the hues over time, pulling up the golds in the wallpaper or the blues in some of the clothes, all working within a pastel, not too high contrast range."
 

Oscars, BAFTAs, Moons, Teapots
and Other Trophies

Building a Pigeon Fancier

Maintaining its hard-earned reputation for snagging top US commercials VFX work, Framestore NY recently created Carrier Pigeons, a new spot for leading delivery service FedEx. As with the E*Trade spots, it aired for the first time during Super Bowl XLII, the most coveted advertising event of the year. Directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ for ad agency BBDO, the spot employs an ambitious blend of live-action greenscreen, photorealistic 3D animation, and a nod to past action heroes.

Appropriately, the Framestore NY team's biggest challenge came with creating the enormous birds. "We knew it would be time-intensive to create full CG birds, and we were already on a tight schedule," admits David Hulin, VFX Supervisor/Head of 3D at Framestore NY. "It was a daring move, but we knew we could bring a lot to the animation and really make these look and feel like 15-foot, half-ton, genetically engineered creatures."

Murray Butler, VFX Supervisor/Head of 2D at Framestore NY, agrees. "On the compositing side, we had to work around the clock for the last couple of weeks just to make sure that everything we wanted was in there, and that we could add some fine touches," he says, "The true achievement of this spot was the collaborative effort that went into blending animation together with the research and development work that was required for all those feathers. From a 2D point of view, there are tiny details in every corner of every frame, and we worked hard to make sure they were perfect."